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Photo / Maureen Milliken
Theresa Kerchner, executive director of Kennebec Land Trust, second from right, talks about the Baldwin Hill Conservation Cemetery as Tony Antolini, of the Funeral Consumers Alliance of Maine, Marie Ring and Jean-Luc Theriault, both of the land trust, listen.
The top of Baldwin Hill in Fayette looks like hundreds, probably thousands, of similar hills across Maine. Ancient stone walls crisscross through second-growth stands of trees, the thick forest beneath tall pines is littered with blowdowns and a carpet of dead leaves.
A new gravel road that winds for nearly half a mile up the hill from Fayette Corner Road and a parking area and gravel path that winds around a grove of pines at the summit are the only signs anything is going on there. A clearcut at the edge of the summit offers a view of hills and farms to the east.
While none of that is out of the ordinary, in a few months the 10-acre site will become something very out of the ordinary indeed, not only in Maine, and in the rest of the country — a conservation burial ground for green burials.
The project by the Kennebec Land Trust will result in the third one in the state. The other two are Cedar Brook Burial Ground in Limington, and Rainbow's End Natural Cemetery, in Orrington.
The 10 acres are part of the overall 90-acre Baldwin Hill Conservation Land the trust recently acquired, and the Baldwin Hill Conservation Cemetery will be overseen by the newly formed Baldwin Hill Conservation Cemetery Corp.
That said, the Kennebec Land Trust is not going into the cemetery business — the idea is to expand the land conservation mission in a way the trust hopes will catch on around the state.
Green burials don't use any chemicals, there's no concreate vault, anything the body is put into for burial has to be biodegradable. Once land is a green burial ground, nothing else can be developed there. In a lot of ways, green burials go hand in hand with what the land trust does — preserves land in a natural state.
The idea first came Theresa Kerchner in 2007, when she read an article about green burials in a national land trust publication.
"There are a lot of environmental benefits," she said. But the land trust, which works with landowners and communities to preserve forests, land and wildlife, was busy. It owns or has easements on 6,245 acres across more than 60 properties. "We were keeping the ship afloat," she said. The idea of having a burial ground "seemed like a big endeavor."
Still, the idea persisted. Summer interns at the trust researched the project and one of them in 2016 put together a brochure. That November, Kerchner got a call from KLT members Paul Kuehnert and Judith Graber, "That's my project, that's what I want to fund," Kuehnert told her.
But it's not as simple as just finding 10 acres — the type of soil, bedrock, the water table and more all played in. Kerchner also envisioned something on top of a hill.
In the end, only three properties the trust could identify in the area qualified. It was serendipitous, Kerchner said, that one of those was Baldwin Hill, which is nestled between two other KLT conservation areas. There was more serendipity when the owners told her they wanted to sell to fund their retirement.
"Once we knew we had the land, all the hard work started," Kerchner said. That included state and town approval, as well as meeting all the requirements of green burial certification.
The trust worked with Dave Rocque, a soil scientist with the state; Joyce Foley, of Cedar Brook Burial Ground and Joan Howard of Rainbow’s End Natural Cemetery, Jeff Masten of LandMatters and Candace Currie of the Green Burial Council. The trust also worked with Lynn Roberts Reed, of Family First, a chain of local funeral homes.
"There were a lot of pieces involved in this," Kerchner said.
The trust bought the 90 acres in spring 2019, and formed the five-member board of directors a year ago. Only nonprofits can own cemeteries in Maine, and the Baldwin Hill Conservation Cemetery Corp., part of the trust, will oversee the cemetery. Plots will sell for $1,000, with a portion of it going to perpetual care. Plots at a traditional cemetery can be very cheap, if it's a town cemetery and a resident has gotten in on time — as little as $200 or so. But plots can also run in the thousands.
And the costs of burial — casket, embalming, the concrete vault, and more — can run high. None of those elements are allowed in a green burial.
The trust will be the land steward, with Jean-Luc Theriault and Tyler Keniston of the KLT serving as sextons — maintaining the property and figuring out where the plots will go. Brandon Ellis, of BHS, in Gardiner, will do the burials year-round. Funeral homes will make the arrangements with families, as they do with traditional burials.
"The only way this would work is if KLT did what it does really well and takes care of the land, the the funeral homes do what they do really well and take care of families in their time of grieving," Kerchner said.
Most of the 10 acres will remain natural. Concessions to the purpose of the area, though, include the quarter-mile gravel trail around the top part of the cemetery and the clear cut on the northeast side of the hill, which will be replanted with perennials and native brush. The two benches offer a place for those visiting to sit and enjoy nature and the view.
In July, the cemetery will begin offering ecologically sound burials for people of all faiths. It's a little different from being buried in a traditional cemetery. Because of the conservation focus, people don't buy a specific plot, but buy the right to be buried in the cemetery. Burials are spaced out to the point that the 10 acres will ultimately have room for only 300 burials.
"We're going to work around the trees," Theriault said.
Instead of traditional vertical gravestones, stones must be unpolished, no more than 300 square inches and not extend more than three inches above the ground. The KLT will also offer a list of native shrubs and perennials, which can aslo be used as grave markers.
Graves will be approximately three feet deep, since that's where most of the microbial activity in soil takes place, allowing for quicker decomposition.
Since embalmed bodies can't be buried in the cemetery, burials will happen quickly after death.
Roberts Reed, of Family First funeral homes, said that one of the most important things people who want a green burial can do is plan ahead.
"That is a huge part of it," she told Mainebiz. "Everyone needs to be prepared."
She has been working with the trust on the cemetery idea for three years. The funeral home group has also worked with KLT in the past on other projects. Her family owned Roberts Funeral Home, part of the Family First group, and located in Winthrop, where KLT's offices are.
"We have a long-term relationship with them," she said.
The funeral home has been getting a lot of calls about green burials, Roberts Reed said. "People are interested."
Tony Antolini, of the Funeral Consumers Alliance of Maine, attended the Baldwin Hill event to gather information for members. He said that green burials will likely be the burial method of the future, but they're also the burial method of the past. He's also a member of the Georges River Land Trust.
He said the consumers alliance doesn't take a stand on issues like green burials, but offers people information, for instance, on things like embalming and grave liners aren't required by law. "We're kind of like the Ralph Nader for funerals," he said.
He said that his organization will also be offering more information on green burials. "We're educating people on how to go back and do burials the way they did it 200 years ago in Maine," he said. "We're simply trying to get people to go back to old-fashioned standards, and take care of the land."
The cemetery in Freeport has a green burial area and it's lovely, and there is more say in where your loved one is buried. This is a great idea for any land conserving non-profit.
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